


With Impartial Step

by melwil



Series: Tear Stains Universe [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-10
Updated: 2011-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-17 20:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/181034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melwil/pseuds/melwil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A funeral story - some things can't change, some things have to</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Impartial Step

**Author's Note:**

> The title come from Horace's Odes: "Pale death, with impartial step, knocks at the poor man's cottage and the palaces of kings."  
> Originally posted in 2003

It began with black robes.

Everyone wore them. They were asked to by the Daily Prophet, but they would have anyway. It was that kind of event.

Harry never really liked black. Green or blue or red. They were his colours. Black was too harsh, to reminiscent of a past he wanted to forget.

But only his closest friends would have remembered that.

The crowds burst through the doors, anxious to grab an unreserved seat in the back rows of the hall. Everyone wanted to be there, wanted to see everything that was going on inside. They wanted to goggle at the important people, wanted to see if any of them cried. They wanted to see the coffin of the great hero.

It was that kind of event.

The important people were the last to file into the hall - people from the Ministry, famous Quidditch players, Hogwarts teachers, friends and family (in-laws, of course. Poor Harry Potter didn't have people of his own.) They were straight, steady lines of black: no need to rush, no need to make it all happen faster.

They didn't want to be there.

His godfather and his best friend sat in the front row. His teachers and mentors and other significant people filled the remaining seats. No one looked around. No one wanted to see anyone elses tears.

Someone sang a song. Someone made a speech, read a poem. Someone cried, someone coughed, someone fainted.

Someone wasn't there.

They left quicker than they came. They returned to their homes, to cozy fires and comfortable chairs. To big meals and big hugs.

The Boy Who Lived, lived no more.


End file.
